Unbelievable: Cuts, bruises and welts can be seen over the body of an unidentified jogger caught in a hailstorm in Iowa

They rescued the four, who have not been named, and drove them to safety - but Mrs Crawford was so shocked by the injuries received by one of the boys that she snapped pictures of the welts on his body.

The students were covered in red bruises and cuts after being pounded by the hail.

'There was a kid in the road looking like he was flagging things down,' she said.

Good Samaritan: Pat Crawford

'You could tell he was a runner because he had the running shorts on, he was barefooted, and he looked pretty beat up.'

Storm spotters reported 1 to 1.5 inch hail in the area.

The storm also snapped poles, damaged trees and caused other damage with wind gusts clocked at 75mph.

The student told Mrs Crawford that the group were forced to seek shelter in the ditch when the hail became too intense.

But they were forced to leave it again when water began flooding in, fearing they would drown.

'They thought it was a tornado,' she explained. 'A lot of us thought it was a tornado.

'So
they laid in the ditch, which was a good idea but they were just
getting the tar beat out of them and the ditches were filling with
water, so they knew they couldn't stay there.'

Mrs Crawford and
her husband loaded the runners into their van and took them to the
hospital, where they required X-rays to check for broken bones.

They were all treated and released from the hospital.

Mrs Crawford said she had never seen anything like it.

'That's
why I took the picture. It was unbelievable. I've never seen a human
body that looked that beat up and they were still walking around.'